Michael H. Levin
Oresteia
(Shakespeare Theatre Company, Harman Center for the Arts, Washington, DC, 2019)
It was the knife.
It always was the knife.
Gleaming, magnetic,
passed from eager to unwilling hand
through generations drawn to grasp
its ivory haft, despite all.
Comes the proud king
(not counting that sire who served
his brother’s sons up in a stew)
fearful his great command will fail
for lack of wind through deck-paced days
who slits his daughter’s throat
so fleets may make for Troy
the queen who held that child
her life, biding slow sinuous time
to his return, that bath, the strike:
not from faithlessness but faith
in dark red recompense
the son who wandered far
yet still came slouching home
to cut her down—harried by Furies
shrieking expiate! redress!
beating his fists against scorched ground.
There seems no pause
to murderous amends
that sluice on till the last soul standing
ends itself. But then
a timid Chorus creeps downstage—
housemaids and tradesmen
not thrice-cursed by sovereignty—
uncertainly debating
how guilt ends; who (terrified) stood by:
recalibrates those awful scales
from weir-debt towards a glimmer
of communal peace. We bear
the blade these days
though wounds pulse
metaphorically: consigned to ask
what may transform those Furies now
or only blood will satisfy
or what new Chorus will appear
as we cascade through clan feuds
that acidify.
Editor’s Note: The version of The Oresteia referred to in the poem is based on the trilogy by Aeschylus, freely adapted by Ellen McLaughlin, directed by Michael Kahn.
Michael H. Levin is the author of the poetry collections Man Overboard (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Watered Colors (Poetica Publishing, 2014). His work has appeared in Gargoyle Magazine, Adirondack Review, and Crosswinds, among other journals and anthologies. Levin works as an environmental lawyer and solar energy developer, and lives in Washington DC. Online at michaellevinpoetry.com
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